r seen, and the dank, dark, and dripping trees
threw an additional gloom about it.

We had left Quebec before seven. It was after twelve when we reached
this place.

"Well, me boy," said O'Halloran to me, with a gentle smile, "it's an
onsaisonable toime of year for a jool, but it can't be helped--an' it's
a moighty uncomfortable pleece, so it is."

"We might have had it out in the road in a quiet way," said I, "without
the trouble of coming here."

"The road!" exclaimed O'Halloran. "Be the powers, I'd have been
deloighted to have had it in me oun parrulor. But what can we do? Sure
it's the barbarous legisleetin of this counthry, that throis to stoifle
and raypriss the sintimints of honor, and the code of chivalry. Sure
it's a bad pleece intoirely. But you ought to see it in the summer.
It's the most sayquisthered localeetee that ye could wish to see."

Saying this, O'Halloran turned to his friend and then to us.

"Gintlemin," said he, "allow me to inthrojuice to ye me very particular
friend, Mr. Murtagh McGinty."

Mr. Murtagh McGinty rose and bowed, while we did the same, and
disclosed the form of a tall, elderly, and rather dilapidated Irishman.

All this time we had remained in our sleighs. The surrounding scene had
impressed us all very forcibly, and there was a general disinclination
to get out. The expanse of snow, in its half-melted condition, was
enough to deter any reasonable being. To get out was to plunge into an
abyss of freezing slush.

A long discussion followed as to what ought to be done. Jack suggested
trying the road; McGinty thought we might drive on farther. The doctor
did not say any thing. At last O'Halloran solved the difficulty.

He proposed that we should all remain in the sleighs, and that we
should make a circuit so as to bring the backs of the sleighs at the
requisite distance from one another.

It was a brilliant suggestion; and no sooner was it made, than it was
adopted by all. So the horses were started, and the sleighs were turned
in the deep slush until their backs were presented to one another. To
settle the exact distance was a matter of some difficulty, and it had
to be decided by the seconds. Jack and McGinty soon got into an
altercation, in which Jack appealed to the light of reason, and McGinty
to a past that was full of experience. He overwhelmed Jack with so many
precedents for his view of the case, that at last the latter was
compelled to yield. Then we drove forward